Monday, May 2, 2011

They grow up so fast...

The chicks are getting so much bigger... and so much more challenging to photograph.

All of the chickens minus one buff orpington stayed in the basket for a good 30 seconds as I got my camera set up... then all but 1 jumped out.

Above is "Bertha" our ameracauna. She remains much larger than the other chicks. Her feet are turning a blue-green color, does leg color reflect egg color to some extent? Our cuckoo marans have dark brown legs and their eggs are supposed to be chocolate colored. Hmm...

Above is "Molly" our little Banty. She remains the smallest and cutest of the flock with her feathered legs. We named the other four chickens after our grandmas. They just sounded like good names for chickens. No disrespect to our grandmas, they just had quintessential old-lady names which we thought worked well for chickens. The cuckoo marans are Virginia and Hazel and the buff orpingtons are Maxine and Evelyn. I think the fact that we named our chickens so obviously demonstrates that neither my husband or myself have any type of animal husbandry in our backgrounds.

Very slowly things are turning green in the garden! We tried to plant green manure crops for the first time this year. It looks like we timed it poorly. Perhaps if this hadn't been a La Nina year with increased snowfall, our timing would have worked. As I am posting this, we still have one mound of snow on the ground - in May! I can't wait to see everything get bigger. I would love to be able to see into the future and see what the garden looks like 5 years from now.

I finished painting the chicken tractor. Purple and forest green to match the trim on our house and because you can't go wrong with purple and green. This chicken coop will get moved around the garden. We are also prepping a berry patch and will move the chicken tractor over there for most of the summer to get some soil enrichment.

I hope the chicken tractor serves its purpose. We had a hard time finding detailed plans on the internet for free. Once we build the chicken coop this summer/fall we should have a good idea of what works and what doesn't. If not, we'll pay for some plans.

2 comments:

Hi;We're suffering in the same fashion. I am still seeing piles of snow and the garden is at least a month late. Meanwhile, indoors, the seedlings are so big I can't contain them! It's good that you are documenting your garden so nicely. 5 years will go by in a blink and you'll have this great diary to revisit...